How to Bale Pine Straw for Mulch

Pine straw is mulch made of fallen pine needles. Because these needles resemble bits of straw, they have been dubbed "pine straw." These needles are plentiful on the floors of pine forests. By raking up the pine needles and bailing them, you can sell them to nurseries and professional landscapers as a secondary cash crop. But in order to sell pine straw, you must package it properly into tight quality bales. You can use a mechanical baler to bail the straw, or you can hand bale the straw using a square wooden barrel and twine.

Twine
Wooden box pine straw baler
Rake

Instructions

- 1
  Open your baler box's side door. Tie a knot with a loop onto one end of a piece of twine. Place the loop over a nail that is located on the back left side of the baler box. Position the twine so that it drops down the inside back of the baler box, crosses the bottom of the box through a series of eye hooks in the bottom of the baler and extends out of the box through a hole in the door. Repeat this process with a second piece of twine on the right side of the baler box. Close the side door of the baler box.
- 2
  Rake pine needles into windrows to make them easier to gather up. Pick hardwood leaves, sticks and pine cones out of the windrows so that you only bale the pine needles.
- 3
  Scoop up a load of pine needles on a rake. Hold the pine needles to the rake using your free hand. Hold the rake over the opening of the baler box and drop the pine needles into the baler.
- 4
  Arrange the pine needles inside the baler and pull out any sticks, leaves or cones that you may have missed. Push the needles down to pack them into the baler. Then get a second load of pine needles and pack them on top of the first. A good sized bale will consist of four loads of pine needles.
- 5
  Put the baler's plunger into the mouth of the baler barrel and push the handle of the plunger down to compress the bale. Remove the plunger.
- 6
  Tug on the ends of two pieces of twine that are attached to the nails in the back of the baler to pull them free of the nails. Pull each piece of twine through the slots at the top of the baler and align the twine over the ends of the pine bale. Each piece of string will have a loop on the end that was looped around the nails.
- 7
  Pick up the strings that are at the bottom of the pine baler box and push them through the loops that are on top of the pine bail. Pull on the bottom strings to slide the loops along the strings and pull the bail tighter.
- 8
  Use the plunger to compress the straw and tighten the twine around the bale. Tie off the loops when the bale becomes so tight that you cannot work your finger into the pine straw.
- 9
  Pull the plunger out of the pine straw baler box. Open the side of the baler and remove the bale by unhooking the twine from the eye hooks in the bottom of the baler box.
- 10
  Tie two new pieces of twine into the box to reset the box.

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